Study Confirms Tea Party Was Created by Big Tobacco and Billionaires

A new academic study confirms that front groups with longstanding ties to the tobacco industry and the billionaire Koch brothers planned the formation of the Tea Party movement more than a decade before it exploded onto the U.S. political scene.

Far from a genuine grassroots uprising, this astroturf effort was curated by wealthy industrialists years in advance. Many of the anti-science operatives who defended cigarettes are currently deploying their tobacco-inspired playbook internationally to evade accountability for the fossil fuel industry's role in driving climate disruption.

The study, funded by the National Cancer Institute of the National Institute of Health, traces the roots of the Tea Party's anti-tax movement back to the early 1980s when tobacco companies began to invest in third party groups to fight excise taxes on cigarettes, as well as health studies finding a link between cancer and secondhand cigarette smoke.

“Nonprofit organizations associated with the Tea Party have longstanding ties to tobacco companies, and continue to advocate on behalf of the tobacco industry's anti-tax, anti-regulation agenda.”

The two main organizations identified in the UCSFQuarterback study are Americans for Prosperity and Freedomworks. Both groups are now “supporting the tobacco companies' political agenda by mobilizing local Tea Party opposition to tobacco taxes and smoke-free laws.” Freedomworks and Americans for Prosperity were once a single organization called Citizens for a Sound Economy (CSE). CSE was founded in 1984 by the infamous Koch Brothers, David and Charles Koch, and received over $5.3 million from tobacco companies, mainly Philip Morris, between 1991 and 2004.

In 1990, Tim Hyde, RJR Tobacco's head of national field operations, in an eerily similar description of the Tea Party today, explained why groups like CSE were important to the tobacco industry's fight against government regulation. Hyde wrote:

“… coalition building should proceed along two tracks: a) a grassroots organizational and largely local track,; b) and a national, intellectual track within the DC-New York corridor. Ultimately, we are talking about a “movement,” a national effort to change the way people think about government's (and big business) role in our lives. Any such effort requires an intellectual foundation - a set of theoretical and ideological arguments on its behalf.”

The common public understanding of the origins of the Tea Party is that it is a popular grassroots uprising that began with anti-tax protests in 2009.

However, the Quarterback study reveals that in 2002, the Kochs and tobacco-backed CSE designed and made public the first Tea Party Movement website under the web address www.usteaparty.com. Here's a screenshot of the archived U.S. Tea Party site, as it appeared online on Sept. 13, 2002:

CSE describes the U.S. Tea Party site, “In 2002, our U.S. Tea Party is a national event, hosted continuously online, and open to all Americans who feel our taxes are too high and the tax code is too complicated.” The site features a “Patriot Guest book” where supporters can write a message of support for CSE and the U.S. Tea Party movement.

The implications of the UCSFQuarterback report are widespread. The main concern expressed by the authors lies in what they see happening overseas as the Tea Party movement expands internationally, training activists in 30 countries including Israel, Georgia, Japan and Serbia.

As the authors explain:

“This international expansion makes it likely that Tea Party organizations will be mounting opposition to tobacco control (and other health) policies as they have done in the USA.”

Freedomworks and Americans for Prosperity are both multi-issue organizations that have expanded their battles to include other policies they see as threats to the free market principles they claim to defend, namely fighting health care reform and regulations on global warming pollution. The report's warning about overseas expansion efforts by Freedomworks should therefore also be heeded by groups in the health and environment arenas.

Finally, this report might serve as a wake-up call to some people in the Tea Party itself, who would find it a little disturbing that the “grassroots” movement they are so emotionally attached to, is in fact a pawn created by billionaires and large corporations with little interest in fighting for the rights of the common person, but instead using the common person to fight for their own unfettered profits.

Wonder how the TEA Party “libertarians” would react to this, knowing that they are not really libertarians, but corporate astro-turf drones, doing the bidding of their corporate masters? Not actually fighting for their own freedom or liberty. But lobbying for companies, who, if were in charge, would argue the very people supporting them should be taxed more and the corporations less. But keep those subsidies coming. They are a necessity.

I'mm surprised that it took so long for the giant pharmaceutical corporate entity to attack freedom in this way! Given that Johnson & Johnson”s anything BUT “non-profit”, The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, funneled tens of billions of dollars into health organizations to an end, to control and push their cessation drugs, I'd say this story is just propaganda. Besides the various grants the ACS gets from RWJF (As of last on-line financial report, RWJF owned 42,343,491 shares of J&J stock). If RWJF does something that causes J&J stock to go up by $10/share, such as greatly increasing sales of stop-smoking products might, that puts many more millions of dollars into RWJFs bank account. The more J&J's stocks increase, the more money and corrupt power RWJF has, the more studies they fund, the more advocacies they create, the more laws they push for to sell more of their products. It keeps going. They also get tens of millions of dollars in grants from the Federal Government, which they then turn around and use their 501(c)(4) (ASCCAN) to lobby the government for more money, for increased taxes against consumers and for laws which drive the need for more J&J over-the-counter products. They also run their own smoking cessation program. The ACS needs to get back to finding a cure in our lifetime, instead of the wasting the donations they have. According to their 2008 Consolidated Division 990s, they spent just about $4 million on research but spent almost $400 million on salaries, pensions, benefits and payroll taxes. http://www.cancer.org/acs/groups/content/@nho/documents/document/group99...

substantial funding to a man I know who's anti-tobacco work had nothing to do with any cessation drugs, just solid and path-breaking research on tobacco's adverse effects on the health of smokers and nearby non-smokers.

Since this whole charade of harm from smoke has been fully exposed like global warming, there is only one conclusion, total control of a previously free population. But the extreme taxation global warming's cap and trade would bring enrages the same public that allows smokers to be outrageously taxed and discriminated against. There is just no other explanation feasible! These tobacco control nnuts are breaking the bank and and you know what happens then! Total ruin. But then maybe that was the plan in the first place! From the Cato Institute:The Second-Hand Smoke Charade http://www.cato.org/pub_display.php?pub_id=5811

Quote: It now turns out that the influential 1993 EPA report “Respiratory Health Effects of Passive Smoking: Lung Cancer and Other Disorders” was as phony as a three-dollar bill. State officials and private businesses that believed that ETS was a public health danger (and not just a nuisance) were completely misled by the EPA. And, of course, so was main street American public opinion.

I'm guessing this screed cites one S. Fred Singer's document published by the De Toqueville institute dissing the 1993 EPA report, signed by 16 scientists from Berkeley, etc. I read Singer's report (never a fun exercise) and found nothing that put any hole in the EPA's report. Nothing there but burble.

Singer's work is documented to have been planned with the tobacco company institute, money filtered through 'non-profit' institutes.

“Science” payed for by those who profit is cherry picked data put into one “study” to show what they want it to. Even the CDC has finally admitted this. The 1998 WHO Bofetta study showing that SHS may even have a protective effect and not the least harmful was withheld because it didn't promote total control of the population. . The abstract of that study is misleading however: they noted finding evidence of a “weak” positive relationship for workplace and spousal exposure, BUT the evidence for a protective effect in children was much stronger: a 22% reduction in adult lung cancers, a statistically significant level, unlike the relationship they chose to highlight. Need proof?

Just like any denialism, I'm sure you can find an obscure paper here and there, that supports your ludicrous case, but even other deniers don't back you up. Tough sell buddy. I mean, there are easier crowds to peddle your wares to.

A simple question for you sir right wing tobacco lobbyist. Do you think the lungs prefer or function better with just clean air………or smoke? Derp.

By the way, sterling job there ol chap in diverting the subject away from the Koch's and the Tea Party and derailing it onto some bullshit defense of tobacco. That deserves a sustained golf clap.

This is a weak affect; fortunately for me most children of smokers do not get lung cancer. Still 3000 Americans with new cases every year – and study after study has found this number – is not insignificant.

The surprising finding was that after non-smokers stopped by smoked on in restaurants, bars, etc., the heart attack rate dropped by 1/3. This was found in multiple cohort groups in multiple locations around the world.

I said Repace's work in 1980 did not receive funding, not in 1996. Eventually he built a solid reputation and responded to requests for his work.

Johnson & Johnson's Nicoderm doesn't sell in the volume that their bandaids do. You have some kind of a bee in your bonnet but it doesn't make much sense to others. Stop it from buzzing, listen to reality, tobacco is loathsome and people ought to be informed of its dangers.

Personal note: A couple of years ago, I thanked my Dad for quitting smoking in his 30s. He was then 98. He lived to be 99 and I got to know him better because of the time.

What's loathsome is nuisance laws and taxes (those made in the interest of corporate profit) take away everything that we hold dear: Private property rights, Parental rights, Privacy rights, Equal rights, Labor rights, etc. The very same thing has happened to business owners with smoking bans! “Since when did the meaning of freedom change from “freedom to” to “freedom from”? The prefernce of a non-owner dictates how a business owner runs his business. One of the 5 main things the Constitution guarantees is that this nation protect property rights (from smoking bans) and earnings (taken for tobacco control), yet this uneducated government would take away the rights of privately owned businesses. The smoking ban is an attack! Did you know that legislators are scored based on the anti tobacco bills they introduce, support & pass. Their scores are tallied at the end of session and their campaign contributions from the anti's are based on their score. We get some real b.s. bills, like making tobacco prescription only, they tried to close down smoking in smoke shops, to increase the cigarette and other tobacco products taxes and always, ban smoking on public streets and parks. It never ends. The anti's are in a tight spot as the state budgets continue to fall. How much does anti tobacco suck from the state budget that could go to schools and other basic state services. The politicians have been bought off and they don't give a damn if all small businesses go out of business, so long as they get their campaign contributions. I am pretty certain it is the same nationwide, that is why the anti's write the bills and can always count on one of their pre-paid minions in state government carry the bills. The state lawmakers don't write the bills, special interest writes them.

Did you read about his testimony in the Greenbelt second hand smoke case? I'm still laughing over that one! (The Judge is too) His $5 smoke detector messed up and measured second hand smoke in the non smoking courtroom!

If you guys want people to believe your global climate change or your ETS stuff, you better find better, less pharma funded, people to quote.

I know there's lots of money in producing papers, and numbers can be juggled to say about anything. I think that Marbee has made legitimate arguments here, and the best you can do is try and belittle the messenger. VERY grammar school!

Many would do well to read Michael J. McFadden's “Dissecting Antismokers' Brains” and educate themselves instead of shilling for big pharma. Such nonsense that we TEA Partiers are working for big tobacco. What next???

Over 100 THOUSAND deaths occur every year due to pharmaceuticals. THAT is the true bait and switch! One only has to look at the marketing strategies by Johnson & Johnson, makers of their own brand of nicotine in droplets stuck in a piece of gum and bariatric surgery that maims the demonized overweight people, and all of the deadly drugs they've put out lately that has resulted in recalls, and the fact that they were busted for bribery recently, to see that this is just more propaganda. Tobacco is in the nightshade family that includes potatoes, tomatoes, broccoli, cauliflower. Should we ban those? Not yet, pharma doesn't have a substitute, but they do have vitamins, thus the push to ban raw milk, herbs, junk food, soda, and backyard gardens. They use bogus “science” to hoodwink uneducated legislators into making unconstitutional laws in the name of “public health” that in essence just wipes out the competition in a BRILLIANT marketing scam, and these legislators have no idea that they've given away OUR farm. More and more people are paying attention, We The People DEMAND the nanny state retreat to the scum ponds from which they came and the sheeple to stop following them!

There are too many iatropic deaths, and we have no way to count them because of the secrecy. Pharmaceutical companies have too often been careless or even marketed stuff they should know better. Once is too often.

Tobacco is unhealthy, causes or increases the risk of lots of diseases. And I DON'T NOTWANTTOBESMOKEDON.

Nothing more compelling than a link to a free blogspot site. Oh, except for text written in red. That's all I need man - I'm going to 7-11 right now to pick up a carton for me and the kids. Gonna have us a smoke-a-thon!

Next thing you know the govt gonna want to take my automatic Bushmaster because “they kill people.”

The propaganda goes like this: Second-hand smoke contains over 4,700 chemicals, over 200 poisons and over 50 human carcinogens.
However, in a 20 foot square room:
For Benzo[a]pyrene, 222,000 cigarettes would… be required to reach the lowest published “danger” threshold.
For Acetone, 118,000 cigarettes would be required.
Toluene would require 50,000 packs of simultaneously smoldering cigarettes.
At the lower end of the scale– in the case of Acetaldehyde or Hydrazine, more than 14,000 smokers would need to light up simultaneously in our little room to reach the threshold at which they might begin to pose a danger.
For Hydroquinone, “only” 1250 cigarettes are required. Perhaps we could post a notice limiting this 20-foot square room to 300 rather tightly-packed people smoking no more than 62 packs per hour?
It is increasingly clear to us that ETS is a political, not scientific, these laws rob Constitutionally protected property rights and freedom and are criminal!

“It is increasingly clear to us that ETS is a political, not scientific, these laws rob Constitutionally protected property rights and freedom and are criminal!”

Funny how history is replete with corporations crying foul, or playing the political card when they arent able to pollute as much as they wish. Even funnier, the people they are able to dupe to rally to their cause. I mean. It's one thing to get paid to spin shit like you do. But you gotta feel sorry for the poor dupes who get paid nothing and still push their propaganda. Totally oblivious to reality and totaly manipulated. The furthest from freedome one could achieve. As they are mentally shackled to corporate agenda's and are unwitting soldiers in the army of product defense.

They want to stop our smoke stacks filling the sky with smog, it's all political I tell's ya, they are taking our freedoms.

They want to stop us dumping toxic sludge into rivers, it's all political I tell's ya, they are taking our freedoms.

They want to stop us using CFC's, it's all political I tell's ya, they are taking our freedoms.

They want to stop us putting lead in paint or petrol, it's all political I tell's ya, they are taking our freedoms.

They want to stop us from selling tobacco that kills people, it's all political I tell's ya, they are taking our freedoms.

They want to stop us from adding an extra layer of CO2 to our plant that we all share, craeting havoc for everyone, it's all political I tell's ya, they are taking our freedoms.

I am a self employed nail stylist. Let's say you call me for an appt and I do not wish to have you as a client. It is my right to deny you an appt. I choose who I cater to. The smoking ban takes that right away from an owner. Now the mob gets to dictate their smoke free preference on an owner. Tobacco is a legal product, may be sold in any bar, yet use of it will not be allowed. If you were to feel threatened by smoke, you could choose to enter or not, a sign would be all that's needed. A sign in braille if needed. You alone would be “jeopardizing your health” if that's how you see it. I work for myself and by myself. I have no other employees. I don't want the nanny state protecting me from myself or my smoking clientele. My non-smoking clientele's air is cleaned by air filtration. So, please explain why the government feels they must enact a law to ban smoking? There was never a law that smoking must be allowed, there shouldn't be one banning it!

I don't support banning smoking. I believe people should have choice. Although I detest tobacco companies selling and advertising to teenagers.

In Canada taxing the hell out of cigarettes, just makes sense since the government therefore the public has to pay for the medical costs associated with cigarettes.

I believe that now that Obamacare is in place, all Americans now have to subsidize the costs associated with cigarettes. (FYI, cigarettes and low Socio-Economic Status go hand in hand.) In effect all Americans are now subsidizing the health care costs caused by smoking because poor people tend to smoke.

Since the early 1980s, if not before, tobacco's business plan to stay in existence has been:

1) Addict children to something that will kill many, slowly. For most people, the addiction only gets “set” while brains are developing. In practice, very few long-term smokers start after 20, and they have an easier time stopping. See Importance of Younger Adults (if youy read carefully, it isn't 18-24 that counts, it's 11-18). For more detail, see Appendix F in Fakery 2 … here at DeSmogBlog. Few adults decide to smoke and stay smoking, since it's not an adult decision.

See discussion of Joe Camel, TwistaLime and similar items.

2) Fund the thinktanks to be “independent” voices, do things like “off-the-record” talks with legialstors, “access to GW Bush”.

and most successfully

3) Create the Tea Party to help the companies protect their right to kill children, probably not what msot Teat Partiers realize they are doing, not even getting paid for it.

Just who do you think funds the Legacy Foundation that put the “Importance of Younger Adults”? The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Johnson & Johnson's “non-profit”, makers of high priced nicotine in gums and patches. And the DeSmogBlog is all in for global warming, another debunked scam that purports taxing the hell out of people for the profit of the elitists. Perhaps you haven't heard of ClimateGate. Nice try though.

And here we have someone suckling at myths like secondhand smoke is good for children. How repulsive can you get?

What I find bizarre is that someone who has the evidence presented straight to them that their beloved movement is nothing but manipulation by big money interests, and they can do no better than repeat the self-serving lies propagated by those interests.

It takes a lot to admit you've been duped. Failing to accept that in such a public way only makes it worse.

Oh and amongst many other ex's I am an ex-smoker only here now writing this by being fortunate to survive two cardiac arrests in two days, the second whilst in ITU wired and plumbed like a Space Shuttle on the launch pad, neither of which by rights I should have survived. But then I am an ex-military (well naval) type who led a very active life with lots of extra exercising on assault courses, mountain walking and climbing, survival and fitness courses and much sport, the medics considered that it was my underlying stamina which helped pull me through.

At that stage I was only smoking about five a day (unless socialising with a drink) and my usual by choice non-filter at that having figured out long ago that filters were bunk and as they turn out more dangerous. See Proctor for the why. Not had a 'fag' (UK idiom for cigarette) since.

Now there are ads on TV sayins smoking is a “treatable condition”! So I googled smoking treatable condition and found this! This about says it all!

SUMMARYPOINTS: Some forms of “medicalisation” may now be better described as “disease mongering” — extending the boundaries of treatable illness to expand markets for new products.

Alliances of pharmaceutical manufacturers, doctors, and patients groups use the media to frame conditions as being widespread and severe. Disease mongering can include turning ordinary ailments into medical problems, seeing mild symptoms as serious, treating personal problems as medical, seeing risks as diseases, and framing prevalence estimates to maximise potential markets. Corporate funded information about disease should be replaced by independent information.

In 1998 the American Cancer Society finally retracted their 53,000 statistic, stating in a press release: “The American Cancer Society will no longer use the statistic because we too have been unable to acquire the documentation to support this citation.” In other words, it was a lie. Wonder why the figure is still being used? They simply can’t stop lying. Close to 90% of the weight of tobacco smoke is composed of oxygen, nitrogen, carbon dioxide, and plain water (1989 Report of the Surgeon General p. 80). This mix is usually called “fresh air.”

Which will demonstrate quite clearly how dishonourably the tobacco industry, and their army of lawyers and PR Agents, have behaved.

Oh, and amongst many other ex's I am an ex-smoker only here now writing this by being fortunate to survive two cardiac arrests in two days, the second whilst in ITU wired and plumbed like the space shuttle on the launch pad, neither of which by rights I should have survived. But then I am an ex-military (well naval) type who led a very active life with lots of extra exercising on assault courses, mountain walking and climbing, survival and fitness courses and much sport, the medics considered that it was my underlying stamina which helped pull me through.

At that stage I was only smoking about five a day (unless socialising with a drink) and my usual by choice non-filter at that having figured out long ago that filters were bunk and as they turn out more dangerous. See Proctor for the why. Not had a 'fag' (UK idiom for cigarette) since.

Public health policies come from pharma who stand to profit in the tens of billions on any given day! You can buy their book on Amazon for $80.00: Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s (Johnson & Johnson's anything BUT “non-profit”'s Series onHealth Policy, Tobacco Control. Policy.http://www.amazon.com/Tobacco-… Foundation-Anthology/dp/078798745XMany “non-profits” have major ties to huge entities. First, the non-profits CREATE a crisis that benefits these huge entities. Like the health advocates. Like big pharma. They are not really concerned with health, they are concerned with profits to be made. Then the state gets their hands in there for the taxes to be raised. Just like the global warming scammers trying to make people believe that skyrocketing taxes in the name of the planets health are acceptable, the second hand smoke charade, and the newly CREATED obesity “crisis” demonizing our youth, these non-profits have a global agenda of trying to make people believe that We The People are too stupid to make our own decisions and need bans of all kinds to protect us from ourselves! Intruth, these scams land on the heads of incompetent politicians. Free enterprise is in dire jeopardy.

In 1988 a rise in Salmonella poisoning had scientists sure that it came from eggs and announced the scare, leading to the slaughter of millions of chickens and thousands of egg producers were put out of business, then the blunder came to light and the government did an about face and acknowledged that eggs were not the problem in the first place! Then came the mad cow disease scare. Then the Y2K scare. And the DDT scare that led to 50 million people dead. Now we have deliberate manipulation of climate data, obesity data, and second hand smoke data, all politically driven. Obesity is a CREATED “CRISIS” that benefits pharma, they own the market on Splenda and Ethicon-Endo bariatric surgery, not to leave out Nicoderm and Nicorette for the CREATED second hand smoke “CRISIS”! Now we see all of the medicines pharma is making from none other than the tobacco plant. Destroy the competition, isn't that their creed? All we have to do is look back into history to see just how easily hoodwinked by special interest that government officials, the press, and the public can be! But we ARE catching on! Too bad all of us won't.

"Fossil-fuel companies have spent millions funding anti-global-warming think tanks, purposely creating a climate of doubt around the science. DeSmogBlog is the antidote to that obfuscation." ~ BRYAN WALSH, TIME MAGAZINE

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The latest release of lobbying data on the European Commission’s Transparency Register has raised concerns that the fossil-fuelled Kochs are trying to influence the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) negotiations.

Digging through the data, DeSmog UK found that the European arm of Koch Industry’s legal, lobbying...